SUPER-COUPONING: Deal-making in the time of limits

I have a small problem that maybe you can help with. I was an avid coupon user before the pandemic and was skilled at putting good deals together. Now that I see some of the deals returning, there is a wrench in the system: Stores are limiting the number of an item you can buy!

I understand this is due to trucks not reaching the stores right now, but a deal where someone could put together a 'Buy 10 to save $5’ no longer works when the store is limiting shoppers to four of the item. I am not looking to go crazy shopping but to just put together a good deal here and there. Suggestions?

Jacqueline T.”

I, too, am happy to see “Buy This, Save That” tiered promotions coming back to stores. These kinds of sales often enable shoppers to take home several items at great prices. That said, stores in my area are currently enforcing limits as well, and I ran into a bit of a challenge when I went to the store to work on a deal scenario.

A supermarket in my area was advertising a “Buy $40, Save $10 Instantly” sale on paper products: bath tissue, paper towels, and facial tissue. I wanted to stock up on toilet paper, and my rough plan was to head to the store, look at prices, and buy four packages of toilet paper priced as close to $10 each as possible. However, when I got there, I saw that the store had shelf tags limiting shoppers to just two of each paper product included in the sale.

This didn’t deter me — I’m always up for a coupon challenge! I did need to restructure my deal, though, to stay within the store’s limits and still make it financially attractive. Here’s the deal I put together: I purchased two 12 mega roll packages for $13.14 each. I added two more 6 mega roll packages for $6.82 each, bringing me to $39.92 — very close to the $40 threshold! I added a single box of facial tissue for $1.69, bringing me to $41.61. My store had a $1 e-coupon too for one package of toilet paper, so after that coupon and the $10 instant savings, I paid $30.61. This worked out to about 85 cents per mega roll, which the package says is the equivalent of four regular rolls of toilet paper. Plus, I got a “free” box of facial tissue too — the “filler” item I used to push my total over the $40 mark.

As an aside, my personal “buy” price for toilet paper is 25 cents or less per regular roll. You can extrapolate this to larger rolls too — 50 cents per double roll, $1 per (4X) mega roll. Because I got these mega rolls for under $1 each, it was a good stock-up price.

If your store is implementing purchase limits, here are some other tips to keep in mind. While shopping at the same store, I noticed that many other canned and jarred food items were limited to four per shopping trip. However, here’s something you may not know: Product limits are typically tied to each product’s UPC. This means that you can still stock up by buying different flavors or varieties of the same item.

For example, canned tomatoes were on sale for 79 cents per 15-ounce can. I purchased four cans of diced tomatoes, four cans of diced tomatoes with onions, and four cans of diced tomatoes with Italian seasoning. This allowed me to stock up on the number of cans that I wanted to buy during the sale. You can utilize this “buying different varieties” method with anything that comes in a variety of flavors — granola bars, pasta sauces, crackers. You can also utilize it with different kinds of pasta — spaghetti, macaroni, rotini, and so on. You can even use this with different scents of laundry detergent, hand soap, or personal care products.